Templer is a system that grew out of the refactoring and improvement of the
ZopeSkel code generation tool, used by the Plone and Zope communities for
years. However, unlike its predecessor templer is not limited specifically to
generating packages for Plone or Zope. With templer you can get a quick
start building python-based projects for a number of systems and frameworks.

In the beginning, there was ZopeSkel. First created in 2006, it was used to
install and run commands to create new Zope and Plone packages. And it
was good. But it was also monolithic and inflexible.

And so, at the No Fun BBQ Sprint in 2009, the decision was made to
split the package up in order to make it easier to work
with only the parts you wanted. At the same time, the sprinters decided that
keeping consistency in usage was a very important goal, and so the ZopeSkel
package has been preserved. Information about the rationale behind this decision
may be read in Splitting ZopeSkel into Egg Packages.

Starting with version 3.0, ZopeSkel is simply a thin wrapper around the
functionality and templates provided by the templer system. Installing
ZopeSkel installs the templer packages needed to reproduce the ZopeSkel
experience. All the templates and supporting code are in templer packages and
none remains in the ZopeSkel package.